City level water withdrawal and scarcity accounts of China

Zongyong Zhang; Yuli Shan; Dandan Zhao; Martin R Tillotson; Bofeng Cai; Xian Li; Heran Zheng; Cunxue Zhao; Dabo Guan; Junguo Liu; Yu Hao

doi:10.1038/s41597-024-03115-4

City level water withdrawal and scarcity accounts of China

Sci Data. 2024 May 3;11(1):449. doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-03115-4.

Authors

Zongyong Zhang^{1

2

3}, Yuli Shan⁴, Dandan Zhao⁵, Martin R Tillotson⁶, Bofeng Cai⁷, Xian Li^{3

8}, Heran Zheng⁹, Cunxue Zhao¹⁰, Dabo Guan^{11

12}, Junguo Liu¹³, Yu Hao^{14

15

16

17}

Affiliations

¹ School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China.
² School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
³ Water Security Research Centre, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK.
⁴ School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
⁵ Water & Development Research Group, Department of Built Environment, Aalto University, Espoo, 00076, Finland.
⁶ School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
⁷ Centre for Climate and Environmental Policy, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing, 100012, China.
⁸ Department of Statistics and Data Science, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁹ The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London, London, WC1H 0QB, UK.
¹⁰ Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing, 211100, China.
¹¹ Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. guandabo@hotmail.com.
¹² The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, University College London, London, WC1E 7HB, UK. guandabo@hotmail.com.
¹³ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China. junguo.liu@gmail.com.
¹⁴ School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China. haoyuking@163.com.
¹⁵ Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China. haoyuking@163.com.
¹⁶ Yangtze Delta Region Academy of Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiaxing, 314001, China. haoyuking@163.com.
¹⁷ Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China. haoyuking@163.com.

Abstract

In the context of China's freshwater crisis high-resolution data are critical for sustainable water management and economic growth. Yet there is a dearth of data on water withdrawal and scarcity regardless of whether total or subsector amount, for prefectural cities. In administrative and territorial scope, we accounted for water withdrawal of all 63 economic-socio-environmental sectors for all 343 prefectural cities in China, based on a general framework and 2015 data. Spatial and economic-sector resolution is improved compared with previous studies by partitioning general sectors into industrial and agricultural sub-sectors. Construction of these datasets was based on selection of 16 driving forces. We connected a size indicator with corresponding water-withdrawal efficiency. We further accounted for total blue-water withdrawal and quantitative water scarcity status. Then we compared different scopes and methods of official accounts and statistics from various water datasets. These disaggregated and complete data could be used in input-output models for municipal design and governmental planning to help gain in-depth insights into subsector water-saving priorities from local economic activities.

Publication types

Dataset
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't